The iPad's the best tablet around because it's the pretty much the only tablet around, but a whole legion of Android tablets, like Velocity Micro's Cruz Reader, are on their way. For $200, this one looks pretty good.

The 7" Cruz Reader, slated for availability in August, is being sold as an ebook reader—a $300 Cruz Tablet, with 4GB more memory, will come out shortly after—but it looks like it will really just be a cheap, functional Android tablet; it has a USB port and SD slot and it can display photos, play MP4 video and audio files, and browse the web. It might not do these things flawlessly, but hey, it's just an ebook reader after all! (That's what you call expectation management.)

Update: A-ha, here are the full specs for both the Cruz Reader and Cruz Tablet:

So, making the jump to tablet doubles your RAM and bumps you to a capacitive touch screen.

As is clear in the video, it's missing a certain level (and in some cases a great deal) of polish you get with the iPad, and you'll likely be stuck with some long-outdated version of Android, but for the tablet to take off as a form factor, there will need to be a range of devices at a range of prices. A $200 slab o' Android is definitely one intriguing end of that range. [Cruz via Engadget]